Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service system, an information processing apparatus, and a service providing method.
Description of the Related Art
Information service using a network has been one of key areas of marketing and many pictures and videos are posted on Web pages. A user who browses the Web pages can see the scenery of a place taken in images and grasp surrounding circumstances thereof by browsing pictures and videos posted in consideration of a theme and descriptions of the Web pages. For example, if the theme of Web pages is tourism, a user sees the scenery of the tourist sites and grasps surrounding circumstances thereof by thinking that pictures and videos posed on the Web pages are related to tourist sites.
However, generally-used cameras have a limited imaging range and a user who browses pictures and videos can see scenery and grasp surrounding circumstances only in a range of the pictures and videos that have been taken. By contrast, if the surroundings are captured in an image using a camera with a wide angle of view such as a fish-eye lens, a user who browses pictures can see wider scenery and grasp wider surrounding circumstances just by browsing a single image (see Patent Document 1, for example). Patent Document 1 discloses a method for forming a panoramic image, in which an image taken using a fish-eye optical device is converted into a panoramic image. A part of the panoramic image and an imaging location indicated by a point are displayed on a map.
However, since the method for forming a panoramic image disclosed in Patent Document 1 employs a single fish-eye lens, an imaging range thereof is still limited in many respects. Further, how to present taken pictures and videos to users is not considered. [Patent Document 1] Japanese Translation Publication No. H7-504285 of PCT International Application